Margaret Atwood: The Turnip Who Would Be PM and other Tales from the Enchanged E-Forest

I’ll bet a nickel that this is the first time the populist Toronto Sun has been cited in the New York Review of Books, a favourite of left-wing intellectual elites. (I read and enjoy both!).

The citation comes via Margaret Atwood who blogs at NYRB.com about Twitter, The Rotating Skull, The Ford Brothers, The Turnip Who Would Be PM, and other Tales from the Enchanted E-Forest. An excerpt:

It was not long however before those with more serious purposes sought me out. Some were bent on my destruction, because I was a left-wing Red Emma, or, conversely, a wicked right-wing apologist for capitalism. Others wanted me to sign petitions or lend them support—all kinds of petitions, all kinds of support. Signing petitions and lending support can get me into difficulties. One fracas—a “flame war,” Twitterers called it, appending gleeful LOLs—resulted in my writing an opinion piece for the Toronto Sun after it had attacked me on various fronts. In this piece I said I would vote for a turnip if it was “accountable, transparent, a parliamentary democrat, and listened to people.” I chose the Turnip rather than, say, the flighty Tomato or the flamboyant Squash, because turnips are modest, down-to-earth, and blunt-speaking.